as much as I would love to go to friends and family this year-I have chosen to create ART for paying customers. Here is my gift to you all: Lady GaGa as a turkey pilgrim….enjoy the holidays!

week 43 was really hard for me…it took about five tries before i gave up and came out with this…so now everyone wants a BOOK/zine with the stories on the inside….I need a manager. i am up too late…had to wait for the frieworks to stop…

here is the collage sheet from Nancy; I used almost all the elements. I am seriously considering a small 12 page zine for my flickr crowabout friends.  maybe magcloud?

Cade, Avery & Aric had a great time on Grandpa’s boat up on Frog Lake last summer. The original photo was lacking the postcard quality background so I cut that out and superimposed them on this great shot of Mt Hood. (Frog Lake). Each child’s paper doll template contained between 8 and  12 pieces! This one took two week-ends to complete. I am going submit the before and after shot to K&Co’s editor and show her that their cardstock pads can be used more creatively than just scrapbooking!

Once I had the kid’s outfits glued into place and their skin colored in with pencil I decided on the background. The image was digitally enhanced in Photo Impression and then printed on a clear transparency. Then the transparency was placed over another *blue* sheet from the K&Co collection. Mount Hood was printed on plain paper and colored over with oil pastel and pencil. This was slipped between the transparency and the cardstock.

I rearranged the kid’s for balance, putting Avery in the center. The dragonfly hairclips were the last embellishment. Vellum, pencil  and OPI glitter top coat (Paris Couture For Sure) gave her some sparkle (since you can’t seen her fairy wings under the safety vest).

there is a challenge on Flickr called: The Many Faces of Mona Lisa. You can submit any kind of artwork as long as Mona Lisa is in it and it’s G-rated. ‘Mona Leasha’ is Kirsten’s idea-but I created the artwork. It is vellum on a Formica chip from Home Depot with ink and pencil. The chip is glued to a  3×5 piece of black mat board.  The dark circle around her eye is NOT an eyepatch. It is the hole cut out of the chip to hang on the display. This chip is just one of many left over from my kitchen re-model five years ago. I knew they would get used someday!

Crowabout Collage Play Week 39 featured some vintage ads and a rooster head I could not resist playing with. Here are the details on this 12×12 collage.

“The Wigwam Villages went out of business in 1939 after their award winning White Rooster “Big Daddy” collapsed under the weight of yet another insatiable female patron. The owner’s put up a sign explaining what ”happened” and why they had to close their teepees and lucrative side show entertainment featuring the 10 cent rooster rides and the Talking Tuxedos, two cats that did vaudeville schtick and who peed on command. The Most Unique Tourist Haven in America was truly an example of what my father called: High Weirdness. It has been rumoured that Big Daddy is still alive and living with Zibelline in Minnesota. The cats are still roaming about Cave City looking for handouts and clean litter boxes.”

Thanks, Nancy B for the collage sheet. *Rider* courtesy of Lunagirl Images. Cat heads are from NYPL digital image collection.

The body of the rooster is cut out of cardstock from K&Co’s fabulous dual sided Que Sera Sera collection. It was made out of  ten different pieces; four wing parts, one body part, two thighs, two legs and of course, the rooster’s head, which was enlarged and cropped from the collage sheet. Rider body was copied off of Lunagirl CD from ‘bathing beauties’ section and then hand colored to match the lady head on the collage sheet that Nancy sent.  Her bathing costume (and shoes) was created by making a vellum template of the orignal and then pasting pieces from the collage sheet onto the vellum. The patchwork was sealed with  clear tape and cut out and placed over the orignal. Hat was made from enlarged dahlia and embellished with adhesive gems. Pop dots, glue and doubled sided tape were used to put the rooster and rider together.

Columns and banner header were digitally manipulated from collage sheet. Banner was hand colored with pen and and ink to add more contrast.

Cat bodies/heads were reversed before construction. Text ‘yourself’  & ‘10cents’ from collage sheet; the rest from my computer printed on yellowing design scrapbook paper and then hand colored and cut out. Arrangement was difficult as my scanner only takes an 8×11 photo.  the 12×12 background is a cardstock page by basic grey.com (wassail/olive branch)

I will do some reserach on the Wigwam Villages…I would not be surprised if a Walmart has permanently replaced this property. The term “High Weirdness” was coined by Ivan Stang, founder (publisher) of the Church of the Sub-Genius, a compendium of oddball culture of which America is famous.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Stang

I was invited last week to join a weekly artist’s challenge on Flickr, hosted by Crowabout (aka Nancy Baumiller). The host sends out a collage sheet on Sundays to all members of the group by posting it on Flickr. From there it’s basically a free-for-all; you are allowed to do what ever you want with the images to create a piece of art. You must use at least 3 images to be in the running for the weekly prize. But you are encouraged to use all the images.

The challenge as I see it is to create an original work that uses the images in different and unexpected ways. I was so excited to play I made mine into a real game, based on the old game spinners of yesteryear , that I’ve noticed are finding their way back into vogue. So I put the collage sheet into the collage creator program and separated the spinner base from the other images and enlarged it. I printed the spinner base on card-stock. I then hand colored the spinner base and all the little faces. I made a real spinner out of another image (printed 5x in a row) and cut it out in the shape of a needle spinner. I poked a hole in the center of the base and attached the spinner to the base with a copper brad.

This game was then placed on top of a variety of images from the collage sheet, including the tattoo of a pretty senorita. The senorita I also enlarged and flipped and printed on card-stock. Her blouse is another image of an old box of beef bouillon cubes!

I embellished the senoritas with pencil, ink and gems.

The Crow-about Challenge was lots of fun and took me most of Sunday to complete. I guess I will go outside now and enjoy some of this summer weather!

I used bubbles on some images…

and photo slides on others…..

also pull outs and fold outs

the hard cover was made with card board and masking tape and then wrapped with designer paper and adhesive…

I drilled a screw into the  back cover and inserted some velour yarn to the front cover to bind the book shut cause it is so thick. I trimmed the bottom edge with some leftover trims from the sewing box.

I had started it in November and finished after the Christmas Donner Party snow event.

Unfortunately the story did not all fit on 14 pages–so I will have to do volume two!

The cover was rubber stamped and embossed with black detail powder. It is OOAK and was a wonderful learning experience. Stay posted for Volume Two.

Mother Electra was one of the many vintage images found in the 19th century ephemera stash. I had read an article about making *mini books* and I thought I would give it a whirl. I began by gathering images that would tell the story and then wrote the story to go with the images. I used some of the tricks from the article and added doors, pockets and sliders within the book. The interior pages were designed with a repeat leaf pattern which I embellished with gold ink. Two pages were glued together back to back  and cut into 6″ strips. I created four strips which folded in half and stapled in the center made 16 pages. I knew that a hard cover would eventually conceal pages 1 and 16 so I left those blank.  See Mother Electra’s Pride and Joy for page construction.

I had just taken a crash course on Steampunk culture and was hoping to make a project that would appeal to the more mature Goth and Cyberpunk hipsters who were looking to purchase handcrafted items on Etsy besides watch part jewelry and steampunk goggles. The only literature I found was some Jules Verne-ish capers that could have been written by a 6th grader: no character development, absent POV and too much dialogue about fetish gear made out of copper tubing.

I had my main character, a portly matron in bereavement, recount the tale of her daughter, who meets tragedy through misadventure and a jealous husband. Gasp! Set in New York at the turn of the century this short short story reads like a diary entry and is supported by the images I found in the stash.

Ladywing #2 is a 12×12 collage. Vintage image from a 1954 Good Housekeeping was scanned and then printed on linen paper, hand colored with Prang pencils and ink pen. Paper doll dresses were created from cardstock (K&Co~Que Sera Sera) and embellished with hats, and wings of my own design and construction. Pale pink & fuschia adhesives gems for earrings and necklace, ring. Sash on belted dress is mounted with pop dot for 3D illusion. Dolls placed on remains of two 12×12 sheets from the Sasha Collection.

Image was then scanned and uploaded to add text in photoshop. I played around with different effects and posted a cropped ‘watercolor” version on Flickr. This is the “text” version…

My friend, Kirsten,  was accused of being a “Decepticon” by her boyfriend, David (who will be attending the Star Trek movie with us tomorrow) when  she was being sneaky but attempting to look innocent. We tagged the header for the movie trailer voice over…”don’t be fooled, she is really a Decepticon!” on our lunch break one day. For more info on what David was alluding to see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decepticon

I love the idea that men can be hoodwinked by a pretty smile and good make-up. These two Ladywings are definitely up to no good.

The caption on the image is sort of lost to me now-but that last line is French for, “Where is Mother and Father?”